I've bought a ton of games recently but none of them have really clicked with me yet.

kinda how i feel most of the time when i buy games during a sale. i'm always like, "yeah this is cool" but i never find myself wanting to go back after the first hour or two. Rain World, Stardew Valley and Hollow Knight are all three games i recently bought and haven't touched after the initial play session. Dead Cells is the first time i've actually been craving to go back to a game. once you get into the groove of how the game plays it's very addicting.

i'd like to start playing Monster Hunter again in preparation for the new one coming out next year but i have this weird aversion to playing 3DS games for a long period of time. like i'm so set on PC or bust and i'm not sure why.

PC is the best platform aside from technical issues and price, so that makes sense. I'm excited for the Metroid 2 remake on 3ds though, looks cool.

I think what it is, we've just played so many games over the years, unless there's something really novel and compelling about them, they're just not typically worth the time investment once you get the general idea of what they're like.

If you weren't willing to pay full price for the game, chances are good you never really wanted to play it to begin with.

I think that's how Steam and humble bundle get you. They trick you into handing over money for something you're not really that likely to play. And it rarely affects the real fans, because they weren't gonna wait this long to play it.

i thought about getting the necro dlc for diablo 3 but i can't justify the the price point given how stale the content has become. i have no idea why they haven't put out a new expansion. RoS was great and won back a lot of good will with the players. until there's a new xpac i can't think of a single reason to play D3 over Path of Exile (which just got a new expansion today adding 6 new acts among a million other changes).

mostly been playing PUBG. resubbed to FFXIV a few weeks ago which has been kinda fun. always like having a good chill grindy game. also been playing The End is Nigh, which is Edmund McMillen's spiritual successor to Super Meat Boy. great level design, ton of content, tight controls. what more could you ask for?

ah okay yeah that's why i never got into fighting games. they're hard as fuck and if you're not on the same level as your opponent it's frustrating as hell.

i don't know a whole lot about DayZ, but my impression was that it's a persistent open world survival game, where as PUBG is a battle royale game. if anything it's more like H1Z1's King of the Kill mode, which funnily enough was co-developed by PlayerUnknown before he made PUBG. he also created the genre with Arma 3's battle royale mode so there's that. but yeah you and 99 other people drop into a huge map and have to look for guns and equipment to kill each other. you have to stay inside a circle on the map and it continually gets smaller as the game goes on. it's not persistent, there's no PvE and there are no extra survival mechanics besides med kits and, well, not dying. think of it like a king of the hill shooter on a massive scale.

with the huge world you have no idea if someone has their sights on you or where people are hiding. and just like that someone from 500 meters hiding in the shadow of a bush might snipe you in the head. that might sound unfun or unfair, but it's the kind of shooter about positioning and tactics rather than outright gun skill. it's incredibly tense all the way through, and i guarantee any player who has made it into the top 10 when the circle is tiny and people are prone everywhere and you have no idea where they are has a rapid heart rate, sweaty palms and shaking hands. getting that final kill for the win is a rush like no other. winning is fucking hard and it's so rewarding when you do. that and the random component is what makes the game so addicting. every match feels different, but they're always a rush.

it helps the devs are consistent with updates and the guns feel great, too. it doesn't feel like some shitty early access survival game like the screenshots might imply (although there's a little clunkiness to everything)

I picked up XCOM 2 when it went on sale along with its expansion War of the Chosen. I just finished it and it was great. I recommend both it and the original highly.

Then I picked up the old DOS version and beat it, and have been playing through its sequel Terror from the Deep, on my phone. There's a pretty sweet community version that makes it pretty convenient to play on mobile. They're clunky as fuck but still worth checking out.

And then I picked up Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle, which, as it turns out, is *also* an XCOM kinda game. And it's the sleeper hit of the year. I never thought this game would be my thing, as I kind of hate the Rabbids, but it's both hilarious and extremely fun. And surprisingly challenging at times too.

Then I got Mordheim, City of the Damned in a humble bundle, which is kind of like a melee based, rogue lite XCOM. But way more brutal and basically mandatory Ironman mode. Not sure about this one yet.

In any case, I've been up to my butt in squad tactics games, and I'm liking them. Definitely reducing my productivity at work.

On that note, I also picked up Metroid: Samus Returns for 3ds. It's also pretty good, very much in the style of earlier games. Pretty hard and little to no handholding. It's a little desolate though, not much original content, particularly with the sound, music, and enemy design.

i got XCOM 2 in a humble bundle early this year and dropped it after an hour. idk why honestly i didn't hate it or anything. i should revisit. i love those kind of tactics games, but i guess the game didn't grip me enough right away to keep playing it.

will do. i picked up Divinity Original Sin 2 in the meantime after all the hype and it's really good. it's every bit as complex, deep and engaging as people made it out to be. it is ruthlessly difficult though. part of it might be that i just don't understand the combat and gameplay loop yet (i didn't actually play the original), but man combat is no fucking slouch.

I've never touched the original but from everything I've heard it's just flatout better across the board - so much so that I see people recommending to skip the first (which is what I did). I'm about 40 hours in (in act 3) and tbh I have very few criticisms with the game. the writing and choices are great, the gearing up is almost ARPG levels of addictive and it's jam-packed with content. it's like the only game I've ever bothered to do side quests that weren't motivated by rewards. I just do them because they're fun. and the combat oh man. that's the pinnacle for me. it has just enough depth to be tactical and complex without feeling overwhelming. I love that planning and strategy are important. how good you are at that is often the difference between winning and losing. it's easily my GOTY so far. I can't say enough good things about it.

Mario Odyssey looks amazing. the Galaxy games are some of my favorites of all time and it looks like Nintendo hit that same quality once again. I'm definitely looking to get a Switch during the holidays so I can play BotW and Odyssey.

I picked up Destiny 2 and it's fun. nothing amazing but as per usual with Bungie the gunplay and production values are great. not sure if I'll be playing it long term - more of a co-op game with friends - but it's been enjoyable, if mindless & repetitive.

also I got a 1440p 144 hz G-sync monitor (fucking steal @ $400) and I love it. 144 hz is so damn smooth.